Category Archives: Opus Dei

An 11th-Century Scandal

Mark Twain said that history does not repeat itself, but it rhymes. The sexual abuse scandal that continues to echo throughout the church in America, as evidenced by the recent controversy over the decision to allow Cardinal Bernard Law to preside at one of the memorial Masses for Pope John Paul II in Rome after his death on April 2, bears a striking resemblance to a series of crises that roiled the church in the Middle Ages, particularly in the 11th century. Then, as now, the higher clergy seemed to be completely unaware of the damage that scandalous sexual behavior was causing to both the victims and the community as a whole.

Problems in the 11th century were much more widespread than in our own. Priests and bishops were unaccountable to secular law, and abusive behavior extended beyond children to include adults. Many had concubines, or live-in prostitutes, who were completely at the mercy of their clerical patrons. Some bishops used their authority over the clergy to compel priests into acts of sodomy, as well.

Cardinal Peter Damian

But one cardinal, Peter Damian, was willing to address the abuse publicly, and he legitimated initiatives on the part of the laity to punish clerical offenders. Much of Damian’s analysis of the root causes of sexual abuse by members of the clergy is applicable to our own situation.

Peter Damian (1007-72), later canonized and declared a doctor of the church, learned about the destructive power of evil early in his life. Because his mother thought her family could not support another child, she refused to feed him as an infant. Only the intervention of the concubine of the local priest saved the baby’s life.

As a child in Ravenna, Italy, Peter Damian lost both of his parents. His medieval biographer claimed that he spent time with an abusive older brother before another brother, who was archpriest of Ravenna, took him in and saw to his education. In the diocesan cathedral school he attended, Damian became increasingly scandalized by the behavior of both students and professors. Rather than pursue a lucrative career as a professor and cleric, he chose to enter monastic life and devoted himself to the work of reforming the church. His accomplishments eventually included the creation of the process for electing popes.

Complaints from Damian about the church’s unwillingness to confront the sexual behavior of the clergy, however, met with inaction. In 1049 Damian wrote to Pope Leo IX (1048-54) about the cancer of sexual abuse that was spreading through the church: boys and adolescents were being forced and seduced into performing acts of sodomy by priests and bishops; there were problems with sexual harassment among higher clergy; and many members of the clergy were keeping concubines.

Peter Damian warned the pope that bishops were contributing to the growth of the problem by their failure to enforce church discipline. Members of the clergy who sexually abused others demonstrated by their actions that they had no fear of God, Damian argued. Such men were afraid only of being despised by the people and of losing their positions; they would do anything to avoid being stripped of their clerical status and identity. Knowing that their bishop would not remove them from their office and ministry gave such men license to continue in their wickedness. Thus in failing to discipline abusive members of the clergy, the bishops stood as guilty as the men who committed the crimes.

Convinced that it was the lack of episcopal leadership that was causing the sexual abuse scandal in his day, Damian offered this admonition:

“Listen, you do-nothing superiors of clerics and priests. Listen, and even though you feel sure of yourselves, tremble at the thought that you are partners in the guilt of others; those, I mean, who wink at the sins of their subjects that need correction and who by ill-considered silence allow them license to sin. Listen, I say, and be shrewd enough to understand that all of you alike are deserving of death, that is, not only those who do such things, but also they who approve those who practice them (Rom 1:32).”

Drawing on the model that the bishop or priest is married to the church, Damian accused both those who sexually abused the people under their care and those who allowed such abuse to take place with the crime of spiritual incest. But whereas biological parents who committed incest were subject in the Middle Ages to excommunication and exile, Damian felt that bishops who betrayed their spiritual children deserved a harsher penalty. Their betrayal ran deeper.

Pope Leo IX

Unfortunately, Pope Leo IX disagreed with Peter Damian’s analysis of the problem of clerical sexual abuse. He was willing to punish clerics who committed acts of anal intercourse with boys and adolescents, but he minimized the punishment of clerics who performed other sexual acts with children and adults of both sexes.

Shortly after the election of Pope Nicholas II (1058-61), Damian called attention to the issue again. His complaint to the new pope has a modern sound: Indeed, in our day the genuine custom of the Roman Church seems to be observed in this way, that regarding other practices of ecclesiastical discipline, a proper investigation is held; but a prudent silence is maintained concerning clerical sexuality for fear of insults from the laity. Damian urged the pope to bring the issue out into the open and to punish both the sexual offenders and the bishops who failed in their duty to punish and to depose sexual predators. He complained that occasionally priests were disciplined, but with bishops we pay our reverence with silent tolerance, which is totally absurd.

According to Damian, punishing those who hold positions of authority and oversight is the only way to restore credibility in times of scandal. Damian recounted the story of the Old Testament priest Phinehas. Finding one of the most prominent Israelite chiefs having sex with a Midianite prostitute, Phinehas exposed the pair to the people as they were having sex and skewered them with a spear. By this action Phinehas imitated God’s justice and sent the message that the laws would be enforced.

Damian notes that most of the Israelite men around Phinehas were consorting with prostitutes. Yet Phinehas struck down only the most powerful and socially prominent offenders. The conclusion to be drawn is that the powerful should be held to a higher standard. Thus in Nm 25:4, when Eli failed to punish his son, God struck him down. His inaction brought the priesthood into disrepute. Likewise, Damian asserted, when the magisterial hierarchy fails to enforce discipline, they undermine the legitimacy of the ecclesiastical office.

Eli was stripped of his power, privileges and wealth. Damian believed the bishops should also lose the trappings of episcopal office. He predicted that God’s agents for stripping the bishops of the wealth and privileges they had taken for granted would be the laity. The laity had granted the clergy temporal authority and wealth; so when the clergy failed in their spiritual mission, it was the laity that had the duty to take these things back, in collaboration with reformers in the clergy and religious orders.

Women held the lowest place in the church during the 11th century, but Damian believed that they too had a duty to correct the clergy. Their inclusion by him in the process of reforming even the highest members of the clergy illustrates Damian’s view that all in the church have the duty to correct their superiors publicly when they see serious sin or deviations from tradition. Virtue and power were not determined by a person’s sex. Rather, virtue is a gift from God.

So in 1064 Damian wrote to Duchess Adelaide of Turin, urging her to use her political power to address problems related to clerical sexual abuse. Using language that may seem offensive to us, he praised God for making Adelaide as strong as a man and drew upon a host of biblical citations, including the examples of Deborah, Jael, Judith, Esther, Abigail and other women who corrected and punished weak, evil or fearful men, to justify her action in reforming the male members of the clergy. The scriptural stories proved that God sometimes chooses women to be instruments of a more glorious triumph.

At the very least, Damian’s story calls into question the practice of covering up sins as a means to avoid scandal. It also provides a road map for church leaders to recover credibility by disciplining the bishops who have enabled sexual predators to damage the most vulnerable members of the people of God. And if the magisterial hierarchy proves unable to reform itself on these matters, St. Peter Damian offers a Catholic model of collaborative reform that includes the laity, religious, deacons and priests. Most important, his story shows that we have overcome sexual abuse scandals in the past by upholding faithfulness to our tradition and maintaining vigilance against corruption.

C. Colt Anderson is assistant professor of church history at the University of St. Mary of the Lake, Mundelein, Ill.

Hey Pope Francis, how does it feel to proclaim yourself the representative of Jesus and God, while protecting all of your Pedophile Pimp Cardinals, Bishops and Archbishops who covered up the mass rapes and abuses of children? Do you think the one you claim to represent, Jesus would do the same thing? Do you think Pope Francis that Jesus would stand up and defend and protect those who did this? Do you think Jesus would call them Holy?

Your own Roman Catholic Catechism speaks of rape as follows: PART THREE: LIFE IN CHRIST; SECTION TWO: THE TEN COMMANDMENTS; CHAPTER TWO: “YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF”; ARTICLE 6:THE SIXTH COMMANDMENT; Offenses against chastity: 2356 Rape is the forcible violation of the sexual intimacy of another person. It does injury to justice and charity. Rape deeply wounds the respect, freedom, and physical and moral integrity to which every person has a right. It causes grave damage that can mark the victim for life. It is always an intrinsically evil act. Graver still is the rape of children committed by parents (incest) or those responsible for the education of the children entrusted to them.

Do you believe, Pope Francis, that the rapes and tortures of hundreds of thousands of children throughout the world, perpetrated upon them by your own priests of your Roman Catholic Church, is in accordance with your teachings of your own Catechism, or the words of your Jesus?

Do you believe Pope Francis, that all the children and teens, who were raped, tortured, enslaved, brutalized, used as medical experiments including forced sterilization, in your Roman Catholic Institutions, like the Magdalene and Good Shepherd Laundries, the Industrial Homes such as Artane and Bindoon, the Women’s and Children’s Homes such as Taum and the First Nation Industrial Schools, was in keeping with the teachings of your Catechism and Jesus Christ?

You asked us not too long ago to accept your apologies and forgive you and your church for what was done to us. Yet how can we forgive you and your church? For to be forgiven, according to your bible and the teachings, you must truly repent of all your sins and crimes.

Yet how do those of us, whom were raped and had our souls stolen from us, whom committed suicide because of it, can give him forgiveness, or any of us so harmed, when he refuses to clean house of all the Cardinals, Bishops and Archbishops whom covered up these evil crimes and are still sitting in the positions that they are in?

How can Paul Anthony Carson, whom upon seeing the priest whom raped him walking down the street and then going home and hanging himself, being found by his parents, forgive him?

How can Emma Foster, whom was raped by Father Kevin O’Donnell, while at a primary school whom committed suicide because of it, forgive him?

How can Daniel Neill, whom committed suicide because of his rapist priest, Joseph Gallagher, forgive him?

How can the 30 boys raped at the St Alipius primary school, whom committed suicide forgive him for their rapes?

How can Lou Pirona, Bill Zeller, David M. Jarobe Jr,Kathleen McGonigle, Eric Patterson, Bobby Thompson, Paul Tafolla, Daniel Romney, Gilbert Rodriguez, Eduardo Ramon Boehland, or those whom for the bell was rung 170 times at Church of Our Savior on Wilshire Boulevard, whom committed suicide in the United States, or any of the other victims, throughout the world, who were raped, tortured, brutalized by your priests, brothers, nuns and sisters, of your church, who committed suicide, forgive you and your church Pope Francis?

They cannot, they are dead, rotting in their graves, because of not only their rapes by priests and brothers, of your Roman Catholic Church, but because of the continued attack against us victims and survivors, by your Church, by your Cardinals, Bishops and Archbishops, by such demented people like Bill Donohue of the Catholic League, and by those who sit in the pews of your Church. We have been branded as liars, gold diggers out looking for a payday from your church. We have been told because we did not punch our rapists in the face, while they were raping us, that means we not only wanted to be raped, we enjoyed being raped and are homosexuals because of it. Or that we seduced our rapist. Or how one of your priests, Father Richard Ross whom said he has no empathy for any victim who could not stop what was happening to them, and how he would like to take victims into a room and beat them with a baseball bat to show them what true pain and suffering is.

Why should we, or anyone forgive you Pope Francis and your church? Why should we or anyone forgive all of your Cardinals, like Timothy Dolan, Donald Wuerl, George Pell, Roger Mahony, Raymond Burke, Bernard Law, or any of your Archbishops and Bishops, who covered up and protected these degenerate rapists, torturers and abusers of children, who moved them from parish to parish, across state lines, and international country lines, to avoid detection, arrest and prosecution?

How can we, or why should we forgive you all, when you use your Church lawyers, to fight us every step of the way and deny us justice by using the statute of limitations to get our cases dismissed when we seek justice for the evil crimes committed against us, by your priests and others of your Roman Catholic Church? Or your Cardinals, Bishops and Archbishops, using Roman Catholics in our legislature, to fight tooth and nail any changes to the statute of limitations, or the opening of a window for victims to come forward and seek justice?

Cardinal Timothy Dolan

Cardinal Timothy Dolan, showed us all how this church truly feels towards us victims, especially when we seek justice for the crimes committed against us by your church. When New York passed the same sex marriage law, Cardinal Dolan cried about how he felt betrayed by the State of New York for doing so. Yet, in the same breath, he cried and said the following over New York wanting to change the ONE YEAR statute of limitations against child rape and abuse: He stated he wanted the one year statute of limitations against child rape to be kept because if the church gets sued, “The perpetrators don’t suffer. There’s no burden on them. What suffers are the services and the ministries of the apostolates that we’re doing now. Because where does the money come from? So the bishops of 30 years ago that allegedly may have reassigned abusers, they don’t suffer. They’re dead. So the people that suffer are those who are being served right now by the church. We feel that’s a terribly unjust burden.”

Notice that Pope Francis? Read his words and put yourself in the place of the victims. Not one word about our unjust burdens, not one word about our pain and suffering. Not one word about the evil horrors what we have had to suffer through in our lives, horrors that have provoked many of us, to commit suicide.

And, Cardinal Dolan lied in his statement. Most of those Cardinals, Bishops and Archbishops who covered up these crimes against children, are not dead, they are still alive, protected and defended at all costs by your church. Cardinal Bernard Law, George Pell, Timothy Dolan, Roger Mahony, Donald Wuerl, and many others, are in fact, still alive. They all participated in these cover ups, they all participated in the moving around dangerous pedophile priests, to avoid detection and arrest for their crimes against us.

Archbishop Jozef Wesolowski, Archbishop Jozef Wesolowski, former nuncio to the Dominican Republic, is pictured celebrating Mass in Santo Domingo in 2009. The Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith found the archbishop guilty of sexual abuse of minors and has ordered that he be laicized. (CNS photo/Luis Gomez, Diario Libre via Reuters) (June 27, 2014) See WESOLOWSKI-DISMISS June 27, 2014.

You, Pope Francis, are also guilty of these same crimes. As in relation to Archbishop Jozef Wesolowski and others. You, Pope Francis, KNEW what Archbishop Wesolowski had done to the children in the Dominican Republic. You KNEW he was paying street children to have sex with him, and to take pornographic pictures of them. You, Pope Francis, had him brought to the Vatican in Rome, knowing that once you did? He was then protected under the sovereign immunity of the Vatican, that this would prevent his arrest and prosecution of him by the officials of the Dominican Republic

You, Pope Francis, KNEW he was a danger to children and others, yet YOU did not put him in a jail cell when you had him recalled to the Vatican. And while Wesolowski had his freedom, for over a year and a half, he continued his crimes against children. He continued to pay children for sex, he continued to take pornographic pictures and even videos of his criminal acts against children, and it has been proven that some of these children died a horrible death because of it.

A dossier accusing Wesolowski of sex abuse of minors was sent to Pope Francis “sometime in July” 2013 by Santo Domingo Cardinal Nicolás de Jesús López Rodríguez. The pope found the information credible enough to dismiss Wesolowski on August 21 via confidential letter. But the pope never reported Wesolowski to civil authorities nor made the information public.

All prelates should make credible allegations public as a warning to avoid contact with the accused. Also, any other victims should be encouraged to contact a law enforcement agency perhaps making the investigation easier, apprehension and prosecution more certain. The group, Survivors’ Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), defines failure to take these steps as a “cover up.”

Wesolowski left the country before a local TV program broadcast an exposé on August 31. It was reported in January 2014 that Wesolowski “is now thought to be living in Rome and is protected from extradition by diplomatic immunity.” “For me it was a surprise to see Wesolowski walking along Via della Scrofa in Rome,” Santo Domingo Auxiliary Bishop Víctor Masalles tweeted on June 24, 2014.

Embarrassed, the Vatican announced on June 27 that Wesolowski had been laicized (defrocked) “in the past few days … Measures will be taken so he is in a precise restricted location, without any freedom of movement,” said Vatican spokesman, Fr. Federico Lombardi, without specifying how this would be accomplished. The press reported this as proof of the pope’s “zero tolerance” for child sex abuse.

November 22, 2014: Wesolowski was seen “walking quietly inside the Vatican City…in apparent freedom” and is presumed to still live there under house arrest. This proves to us that Fr. Federico Lombardi lied to us, as is usual with the Roman Catholic Church when it concerns their pedophiles.

Defrocking means a cleric is fired without being reported to the police. The most serious punishment available to the pope is excommunication. Pope Francis excommunicated an Australian priest for supporting women’s ordination and same sex marriage. He also excommunicated the leaders of the lay group, We Are Church, for celebrating mass in their home.

But, did you excommunicate Archbishop Jozef Wesolowski, Pope Francis? No you did not. It is apparent to us victims of your crimes of your church against us, that you find a priest saying women should be ordinated, and one who supports same sex marriage, or a lay group having mass in their homes, more worthy of excommunication, than a pedophile, who paid children for sex, raped them, or possessed over 100,000 child pornographic images and videos of child porno on their computer.

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI blessing Pedophile “Father” Marcial

You, Pope Francis, have proven to us, the victims and those who fight for us, that you are just like the rest. That you will protect and defend those who rape children, instead of standing up to them, instead of standing up for the victims. That you will protect and defend the pedophiles and the pedophile pimps, like Pope Emeritus Bendict XVI and the Cardinals, Bishops and Archbishops who covered these crimes up, and it is business as usual on this matter. To deny us victims any rights to justice for the crimes committed against us by your church.

The UN Committee against Torture “found that the widespread sexual violence within the Catholic Church amounted to torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.” After Vatican officials were called to Geneva in May 2014 to respond to tough questions like why the pope believed his responsibility for protecting children against torture only applied on Vatican property, the committee issued its report.

The members “ordered the Vatican to hand over files containing details of clerical sexual abuse allegations to police forces around the world, … to use its authority over the Roman Catholic Church worldwide to ensure all allegations of clerical abuse are passed on to the secular authorities and to impose ‘meaningful sanctions’ on any Church officials who fail to do so.” With the exception of a couple of staged PR events, the pope has refused to take any of these measures.

The Vatican had issued an “Initial Report” preparatory to the hearing. “Nowhere in the Holy See’s [the name of the Church’s global government] Initial Report under the Convention does it make any mention of the widespread and systemic rape and sexual violence committed by Catholic clergy against hundreds of thousands of children and vulnerable adults around the world. There is no mention of acts that have resulted in an astonishing and incalculable amount of harm around the world – profound and lasting physical and mental suffering – with little to no accountability and access to redress …[T]he Vatican has consistently minimized the harm caused by the actions of the clergy, through both the direct acts of sexual violence and Church officials’ actions which follow, such as cover-ups and victim-blaming. … The Holy See’s Initial Report to this Committee is itself evidence of the minimization of these offenses and the resulting harm.

The Committee against Torture report came “after senior officials sought to distance the Vatican legally from the wider Church … saying priests were not legally tied to the Vatican but fell under national jurisdictions. But the committee insisted that officials of the Holy See – including the pope’s representatives around the world and their aides – have a responsibility to monitor the behavior of all under their ‘effective control.’”

The following faces and statement proves, Pope Francis, that you are just like the rest, when it comes time for standing up to the pedophiles, those who rape children, from your church. How you do not truly care one bit about the victims, but the defense and protection of your church and its pedophiles.

As archbishop of Buenos Aires, Jorge Mario Bergoglio “refused to meet with victims, and he stayed largely silent on the issue of clergy sex abuse, except to issue a surprising denial that he had ever handled an abusive priest. His only known action was to commission a behind-the-scenes report to judges that sought exoneration of a criminally convicted priest by impugning the credibility of the priest’s victims.”

Then, one month to the day after you were elected Pope, you appointed a group of Cardinals, referred to as your C9, to be your closest advisors. And who are some of the members of your C9 advisors?

Cardinal George Pell

Cardinal George Pell: As archbishop and creator of the “Melbourne Response,” a system “designed to control the victims and protect the Church … Pell intended to minimize the crimes, conceal the truth, manipulate and intimidate the victims. … Some relatives of abused children have called the cardinal a ‘sociopath.’” Pell personally knows hundreds of the people involved – the victims and their families as well as the abusers. … He was a very senior authority in the Catholic Church when the court cases began in the 1990s and the top Catholic figure in Australia until he went to Rome. … [H]e was the leader of a system that protected the guilty and failed innocent people. … [H]e was the man in charge during many years of this scandal. Therefore, he can be held accountable and responsible for it.”

Cardinal Francisco Javier Errazuriz Ossa: Errazuriz had made national headlines for protecting Fr. Fernando Karadima, the “worst scandal” of the Chilean Church. “Power is the true point of the case. The [sexual abuses against children] were not possible without a network of political, social and religious power working for 50 years,” stated political analyst Ascanio Cavallo, Dean of the Journalism School of the Adolfo Ibáñez University. Church officials were warned as early as 1984 about Karadima’s “improper conduct.” The first

Cardinal Francisco Javier Errazuriz Ossa

known reports to reach Errazuriz were in 2003. In 2006, a priest appointed by Errázuriz to investigate the claims reported to the cardinal that he believed “the accusers to be credible.” According to court testimony in a 2011 civil complaint filed against Karadima, Church officials, including Errázuriz, tried to shame accusers into dropping claims, refused to meet with them and failed to carry out formal investigations for years. A judge dismissed the criminal case against Karadima in November 2011 because the statute of limitations had expired but also determined that the allegations were “truthful and reliable.

And, when you Pope Francis appointed Errázuriz to your C9 advisors, one of the victims stated that this appointment “a shame and a disgrace.” On September 15, 2013, Errázuriz said that the archdiocese had no responsibility for their “tremendous pain.”

Yes, Pope Francis, again, we have from the mouths of one of your own advisors, one who covered up for pedophile priests, that you, your church has no responsibility for their “tremendous pain.” But, Pope Francis, who does then bear the responsibility for the tremendous pain and suffering, the unjust burdens and the horror the victims of rape committed against them by the priests of the Roman Catholic Church? Is it the victims themselves? Because it sure seems like it when it comes to this Church of yours.

Then Pope Francis, when the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC)requested of you, for “detailed information on all cases of child sexual abuse committed by members of the clergy, brothers or nun” for the past fifteen years and set November 1 as a deadline for a reply. The questions were sent as preparation for a public hearing scheduled for January. What did you say and do about this request?

First, a little background. As one of the signatories to the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Church was fifteen years late in delivering a report describing whether it had acted to “protect the child from all forms of physical or mental violence” as the convention requires. Additionally, the questionnaire sought to establish whether “perpetrators of sexual crimes” were allowed to remain in contact with children, what legal action was taken against them and whether reporting of suspected abuse was mandatory. It also included queries about support for victims, and any incidents where complainants were silenced.

And what was yours and the Vaticans response to this? You, Pope Francis and the Vatican warned that it might pull out of the Convention on the Rights of the Child if pushed too hard on the issue. In a report of its own posted on the UN website last October, the Holy See reminded the CRC of reservations on legal jurisdiction and other issues it made when it signed the global pact. It said any new “interpretation” would give it grounds “for terminating or withdrawing” from the treaty.

And then what did you do Pope Francis? On July 11, 2013, the pontiff enacted a civil law criminalizing leaks of Vatican information to the press and sexual violence against children, including child pornography. The crimes were punishable by up to eight and twelve years in prison, respectively. The law was applicable inside the Vatican City State and for employees of the Holy See in its extraterritorial properties including embassies.

How did you respond to the CRC request Pope Francis? On December 4 by your stating that it was not the practice of his government to “disclose information on specific cases unless requested to do so by another country as part of legal proceedings” and “that the Vatican can provide information only about known and alleged child sex crimes that have happened on Vatican property.”

Cardinal Roger Mahony

Then Pope Francis, as an added slap to the faces of the victims, what did you do? On January 16, 2014, the day the CRC hearings were to begin in Geneva, you, Pope Francis again showed your contempt for your Church’s victims by celebrating mass, followed by a private meeting, with Cardinal Roger Mahony, archbishop emeritus of Los Angeles. The Washington Post (among others) had condemned Mahony for protecting known abusers, stating he’s “lucky not to be in prison” and that “his continued prominence reflects the culture of impunity in the Catholic Church a decade after its tolerance and complicity in the abuse of children was exposed.” After your private meeting with you, Mahony blogged “the topic of scandal never came up.”

“Father” Fredrico Lombardi

The same day, Lombardi said the Church had developed “a series of initiatives and directives” that are “extremely helpful” to other communities. He also criticized the assumption that bishops or religious superiors act “as representatives or delegates of the Pope.” He said this belief is “utterly without foundation.” Rather, civil authorities in countries that have signed the UN convention are directly responsible for its implementation and for the enforcement of laws that protect children.

The UN panel asked Vatican representatives for responses to the questions they had sent in July. While the American media trumpeted a statement made by one of the Vatican officials that he “gets it,” the foreign press was not as fawning:
Germany’s Deutsche Welle: Vatican response ‘fails smell test for ordinary people’
Venezuela’s El Nacional: The Vatican at the UN today dodged providing detailed information on issues relating to sexual abuse of minors by clergy in a rhetorical exercise in which it attempts to demonstrate determination to prevent new offenses
Spain’s El Pais: The Vatican still does not take responsibility for sexual abuse

BishopAccountability.org noted four significant moments of the hearing:
1. For the first time, the Vatican had to admit publicly that it still does not require the reporting of child sex crimes to civil authorities. Nor does it take this step when priests are defrocked.
2. The Holy See still refused to provide the data requested on July 1.
3. The Vatican believes that it is the obligation of the individual perpetrator, not the Church, to compensate victims.
4. Religious orders, which comprise one third to one half of the world’s Catholic clerics, still are not being compelled by the Holy See to create abuse policies. (Pope Benedict XVI ordered the world’s bishops to do this in 2011. The order was widely ignored, even by the cardinal archbishop of Buenos Aires, Jorge Mario Bergoglio.)

Then, Pope Francis, we now show how your Vatican, yourself and other mouthpieces for your church, played the look the other way game of subterfuge and deception. Of blaming others, and saying hey, look at what they are doing, why are you picking on us?

Archbishop Silvano Tomasi

Vatican delegate to the UN, Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, responded in an interview: “At the same time we have to keep in mind that even though there are so many millions, forty million cases of abuse a year regarding children, unfortunately some cases affect also Church personnel.” Tomasi also suggested that the UN committee may have been influenced by “Some NGOs that support homosexuality, same-sex marriage and other issues probably presented their own views and ended up reinforcing [the committee’s] line of thought in some way.”

And then you came out with this statement Pope Francis, KNOWING it was a lie, because your church has been anything BUT moving with transparency and responsibility. The only responsibility yourself, the Vatican and the Roman Catholic Church has far proven by your actions, is that you are to protect your church at all costs.

On March 5, 2014, you, Pope, stated that, as regards the sexual torture of children, “The statistics on the phenomenon of violence against children are shocking, but they also show clearly that the great majority of the abuses come from the family environment and from people who are close. The Catholic Church is perhaps the only public institution that moved with transparency and responsibility. No one else did as much. And yet,the Church is the only one being attacked.”

If your words Pope Francis and the rest were truth? Then such people like Cardinal Bernard Law, George Pell Timothy Dolan, Roger Mahony, Donald Wuerl and the others who covered up these crimes against children, who helped perpetuate these crimes against children, who protected the pedophiles over the children, would have been excommunicated and turned over to authorities for prosecution.

If your words Pope Francis were truth, then you would not have recalled Archbishop Jozef Wesolowski back to the Vatican, so he could be protected from the authorities in the Dominican Republic. You would have turned him over for prosecution for the crimes against children he committed there, instead of allowing him sovereign immunity by bringing him to the Vatican to be protected so.

If your words were truth, Pope Francis, then you would not have loaded your C9 advisory committee with known Pedophile Pimps, like George Pell and others, against whom, there is overwhelming evidence against them they participated in the cover ups of the rapes and abuses of children.

If your words were truth Pope Francis, then your church would NOT be denying victims of these crimes justice. Your church and the lawyers you buy would NOT be denying us victims justice by using the statute of limitations against us. Nor would they be fighting any changes to the statute of limitations, or the opening of a window for victims to come forward and seek justice for the crimes committed against us.

If your words were truth Pope Francis, you would NOT be allowing us victims, to be re-victimized, by the attacks done against us.

Now tell me, could this be Pig Face Bill Donohue of the Catholic Leagues father or mother?

You would NOT be allowing Bill Donohue, of the Catholic League to attack us victims like he does, insulting us, denigrating us, defaming us. All the evil he has said against us victims, he is one who deserves excommunication. You, Pope Francis, would call Bill Donohue out, for his proclaiming how we victims are nothing but liars, gold diggers, out looking for a pay day from the church. For his comparing the horror, the terror, the pain and suffering of us victims, who were brutally raped, by your priests, not only of our bodies, but of our souls, our minds and our hearts, to his being slapped on the wrist by a nun when he acted out.

For his lying about one victim, proclaiming him as part of a drug gang murder, and how the police department covered it up, when the victim in fact, testified in a drug murder, putting his life at great risk in doing so. And because of Bill Donohue actions and words, that victim now is in fear of his life, having received death threats, and other threats as well as being beaten for his standing up and doing the right thing in testifying in a drug gang murder. The victim is now suing Bill Donohue and the Catholic League for defamation and other civil actions and yet, YOU Pope Francis has not ever stepped in and put a stop to Bill Donohue and his attacks against the victims of priest rape.

If you were speaking the truth Pope Francis, then when The United Nations Committees on the Rights of the Child and on Torture, requested the Holy See to abolish the pontifical secret for allegations of child sexual abuse, and to order through canon law mandatory reporting to the civil authority. Then in September of 2014, YOU would not have rejected that request and told them you did so on the grounds that mandatory reporting would interfere with the sovereignty of independent States. Mandatory reporting would only interfere with such sovereignty if a State law prohibited reporting of clergy sex abuse of children to the police. No such State exists.

But the Vatican … illustrates its very real intention to interfere in the sovereignty of independent States by prohibiting reporting once canonical proceedings start, even when the civil law requires reporting. …

The de facto privilege of clergy by the use of secrecy, rendering clergy immune to civil prosecution for child sex abuse, was set up in 1922 by Pope Pius XI, and was continued and expanded by five of his successors. Regrettably, it seems that you, Pope Francis have given every indication of adding yourself to the list as the seventh pope.

Bishop Juan Barros

If you were speaking the truth, Pope Francis, then you would not have appointed Juan Barros Madrid as Bishop of Osorno, Chile. Did you not get the hint, Pope Francis, that on the day that Barros was installed as Bishop, amid riot police, and hundreds of parishioners,dressed in the black of mourning denounced Barros, that they all knew what Barros had done and instead of supporting him, you should never have made him a Bishop?

If you are speaking truth Pope Francis then why did you ignore Archbishop Chomali? We know, in an interview published March 26, the Archbishop of Concepcion disclosed the details of a meeting he had with Pope Francis on March 6. “Archbishop Chomali explained that he gave Pope Francis a ‘document with detailed information on the consequences of the appointment he had made. All the documentation that I cited came to him, whether through the nunciature or the Chilean embassy to the Holy See. He was very much up to date on Bishop Barros’ situation, and in fact a few days prior he had spoken with him. With firmness and much conviction he told me that he had analyzed all the past records and that there was no objective reason that Bishop Barros should not be installed as diocesan bishop.’”

No, Pope Francis, you do not speak the truth, for your actions speak much louder than words do. You talk a good PR talk, but your other words and actions do not match with the PR propaganda you are putting out. Yes, Pope Francis, I am in fact, calling you a two-faced, liar and charlatan. I speak the truth when I say this. Something you and the rest of your Pedophile Pimps, cannot even begin to do.

You, Pope Francis, disgust me along with all of your Pedophile Pimp Popes, Cardinals, Bishops and Archbishops. For you are just like them all, you are a degenerate in my book, you are just as responsible for the rapes, tortures, enslavement, abuses, and other crimes against children, as all the rest. You, Pope Francis, are NO Holy Man of God, nor are YOU a representative of Jesus Christ on earth. You are as sick and twisted, as much a pervert, as much a criminal as all the rest of your fellow Pedophile Pimps.

You, Pope Francis are one of the lowest forms of life on the planet. Even the contents of a well used outhouse has more use than you do, and deserves a lot more respect to boot. You protect your cult of Pedophiles and Pedophile Pimps, just like the rest of them.

You, Pope Francis, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, all of your above named Cardinals, Bishops and Archbishops, stand guilty, before your God and Jesus Christ, whom you proclaim to follow, to be representatives of on this Earth, through your Roman Catholic Church, of heinous crimes against children throughout the world.

You, Pope Francis ask us to forgive you. Why should we? Why should anyone forgive you, or your church and what you all have done to us?

NONE OF YOU HAVE TRULY REPENTED FOR ALL THE CRIMES AND EVILS YOU AND YOUR CHURCH HAS DONE AGAINST US!!!!THEREFOR, NEITHER CAN WE, NOR EVEN YOUR OWN GOD AND JESUS CHRIST FORGIVE YOU, UNLESS YOU TRULY AND HONESTLY REPENT OF ALL OF THIS EVIL YOU HAVE DONE TO CHILDREN, THROUGHOUT THE CENTURIES OF WHAT YOU HAVE DONE TO THEM. TO BE FORGIVEN YOU MUST ALL TRULY REPENT, SEEING YOU HAVE NOT DONE THAT, THEN YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO ASK ANYONE FOR FORGIVENESS…..NOT US VICTIMS WHO WENT THROUGH THIS HORROR, NOR YOUR GOD AND JESUS IN WHICH YOU ALL PROCLAIM TO BE REPRESENTATIVES OF!!!

Pope Francis, the one YOU proclaim to represent upon earth, as the Vicar of Christ, then his words apply much more to you and the rest of your Cardinals, Archbishops and Bishops, even more than it applies to the rest of us. For YOU are supposed to be holy men of god, and the leaders of what you proclaim the one true church of Jesus Christ.

Well the one YOU proclaim to represent, Pope Francis, Jesus said in the bible, the book YOU all proclaim to be the true word of the true God, the following: Mark 9:42: 42″Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe to stumble, it would be better for him if, with a heavy millstone hung around his neck, he had been cast into the sea. And in Luke 17: 1-2: 1He said to His disciples, “It is inevitable that stumbling blocks come, but woe to him through whom they come! 2″It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea, than that he would cause one of these little ones to stumble.

It looks like, Pope Francis, that you and the rest of your Pedophile Pimps ought to invest in a company that makes strong, sturdy rope and does a lot of millstones. For if I were you? I would start tying ropes around your neck and attaching it to millstones and find a great portion of the sea to toss your bodies into. That has to be a whole lot better than having to deal with the ones you proclaim to represent, Jesus Christ is going to do to your souls once you get before him in my opinion.

In closing Pope Francis, because we who were raped, tortured, brutalized, enslaved, and destroyed by your church and its pedophiles and abusers, have the guts to stand up and speak out against all the crimes committed against us and demand justice, we are branded as bigots, haters, and even worse. We are told time and time again, because we dare speak out, that we are all bound for hell. That because we DARE insult you all, that we do not hold any respect for ones such as yourselves, that we are the ones who deserve to burn in hell.

Many of us have already done our time in hell though Pope Francis. Our pains and sufferings, our nightmares, our horrors have sent us into hell and quite a few of us have come out on the other side of it, much stronger, than the victims we once were. We are now STRONG SURVIVORS.

Though some of us did not make it, our pain and suffering and horror and the continued treatment of evil against us by your Roman Catholic Church, caused some of them to blow their brains out, or hang themselves, or commit suicide in other ways.

And some are still hiding in the shadows, too afraid to come out and speak, about the crimes committed against them, by the priests, brothers, nuns and sisters and all the others of your church. Who are still silent, because they fear you still, they fear their rapists and the mind tortures they were put through by them while they were being raped and brutalized, realize this Pope Francis!!!

We the strong survivors are MANY. We do NOT fear you, nor your church, nor your Cardinals, Bishops and Archbishops. We do not fear the pew polishers, who insult and denigrate and threaten us. We do not fear Bill Donohue of the Catholic League or anyone else who attacks us.

We will stand and speak out, we will hold you all to your crimes. We will speak out and expose them where ever we go and whenever we are called upon to do so. We will stand up for those victims, who are as yet, still too afraid to speak out. We will defend them, and ourselves, against you, your other leaders and all who attack us and defend your church for all of the crimes committed against us.

We WILL continue to demand justice. We WILL continue to demand the arrest and prosecution of each and every one of you who covered up these crimes against us, who protected and defended the pedophiles, the abusers of us, and we WILL win against you all. You may not think so, you may think that the Roman Catholic Church is untouchable, that no one can make you all pay for your Crimes Against Humanity and the Children of the World.

In a sense, you might be right, that no justice system will be able to make you pay for your crimes, but that is in fact changing and I believe that soon the United Nations will have their say and you will be prosecuted by them.

But then, one day, you will have to stand before the ULTIMATE JUDGE, the ones you all proclaim to follow and represent on this plane of existence. And I think when you do? You will surely wish you HAD tied a huge millstone around your neck and thrown yourselves into the deepest of seas, compared to the punishments YOU will be facing before the Judge you call God and Jesus Christ.

I believe, they will show you more mercy, by sending you straight to the 9th Level of Dante Inferno, than all of you have to us, the survivors of your evil, criminal cult of Pedophile Pimps, Pedophile Priests, Abusive Nuns and all the Parishioner Pew Polishers of your Roman Catholic Church.

Catholic child abuse analysed

The John Jay Institute report on the child abuse scandals in the USA has been published. It will surprise and discomfort all sides

The big report of the independent criminologists of the John Jay institute into child abuse in the American Catholic church has now been published. There is something in it to upseteveryone. For a start there are many cases of child abuse – and though the report does not go into this – there was a great deal of covering up done. But we knew that. What’s new in the report is the detailed examination of the causes and of the statistics involved.

The pattern that the investigators have to explain is a steep rise in cases of child abuse though the sixties and seventies, followed by a steady decline but a simultaneous rise in reports of earlier incidents in the late Eighties and early Nineties. That, too, has declined towards the present day.

This is an unusual pattern both of reporting and of offending. For comparison I have extracted from the government’s web site the Swedish figures for sex crimes against children under 15 and they show no decline at all since 1991. I’ll come back to those later.

The other notorious and unusual thing about the American Catholic cases is that the great majority of them involved boys – something like 83%. The secular pattern is entirely different.

There are three popular explanations for the figures, depending on your view of the Catholic church: if you are a liberal Christian you are inclined to blame celibacy; if you are a conservative, you blame it all on gays; and if you’re not a Christian at all you just assume they are all rotten, always have been, and still are.

I don’t think this last explanation stands up, for two reasons. The first is that even at its height child abuse was a pretty uncommon crime. The John Jay Institute helpfully compares the number of reported offences with the number of confirmation candidates, to get a rough figure of reported assaults per 100,000. This will tend to overestimate the frequency, because obviously a priest has access to many more children than just confirmation candidates. But it is a consistent measure by which to compare year with year.

So in 1992, when the worst was over, the rate was 15 incidents of reported abuse per 100,000 confirmations. By 2001 it had dropped to of 5 incidents of abuse per 100,000 confirmations in the Catholic Church. There was a similar drop in American society as a whole but less steep and from a consistently higher rate.

For comparison, the Swedish figures for reported sex crimes against all children under 15 was 142/100,000 children in 1992, and 169/100,000 in 2001.

These figures suggest that during the 1990s a child in Sweden, possibly the most secularised country in Europe, was between 10 and 30 times more likely to be sexually assaulted than an American Catholic was by his priest. Even making allowances for the considerable margin of error that must be built into these figures, it’s clear that what went on in US Catholic churches was terrible but rather less terrible than what went on at the same time in many other places where Catholicism was not involved. If the US Catholic church is a hotbed of child rape, Sweden is an awful lot worse. (Just to be clear here, I think the idea that Sweden is a dangerous country for children is entirely absurd.)

I picked Sweden for comparison largely because I know my way round the crime statistics there. But the US government figures quoted in the John Jay report show also that Alaska has a rate of reported child abuse that dwarfs Sweden’s – 788/100,000 in 2001, or 140 times the incidence of reported child abuse in the US Catholic church at the same period. So there is nothing uniquely rotten about the American Catholic church.

The second reason is sociological. The statistics do show a clear and steady decline in reported cases for the last 30 years, even though much of the reporting did not come in until long after the event. If you want to believe that the level of crime has stayed steady while the number of reports has dropped, you would have to come up with some reason why American Catholics (unlike Alaskans or Swedes) would become less likely to report a crime in a period when the social stigma for doing so has almost disappeared and in some cases considerable financial compensation has been on offer.

Which leaves the other two hypotheses. Was it the fault of the gays? The argument in favour is that the victims were overwhelmingly boys and the perpetrators exclusively men. But the John Jay study rejects this, on two grounds. The first, again, is based on the decline in the number of reported incidents. That coincides with what most people agree has been an increase in the number of gay men in the priesthood. So if gay priests were the problem, you would expect the figure for reported assaults to rise, as they did in Sweden and Alaska. This hasn’t happened.

Nor is it the case that men who had had sex with other men before training for the priesthood abused boys in any greater numbers than men who had had sex with women before.

“Priests with pre-ordination same-sex sexual behaviour were significantly more likely to participate in post-ordination sexual behaviour, but these priests were more likely to participate in sexual behaviour with adults than minors. Same-sex sexual behaviour prior to ordination did not significantly predict the sexual abuse of minors.”

But gay priests of this sort, if they did abuse, showed a marked preference for male victims.

So perhaps it was celibacy, after all. The trouble with this theory is the same decline in incidence of abuse as was noted before. That was not accompanied by any relaxation in the celibacy rules. It’s possible that the discipline of celibacy has simply collapsed in the USA. But the report doesn’t suggest this; nor, for that matter does anecdotal (or any other) evidence.

Which leaves the “Woodstock” hypothesis: that it was all the consequence of rapid social change. The combined impact of the sexual revolution outside the Church, and of the Vatican II reforms inside simply broke down the traditional self-discipline of the priesthood along with much of its traditional authority. This is the hypothesis that the report itself favours. But there is a subtlety with this view: if it were only the morals of the surrounding society which made a difference, then – again – the incidence of abuse would hardly have gone down. American society is not more sexually puritanical now than it was in 1975. So, the report argues, it was the impact of the sexual revolution on men who had not been trained to withstand it which was the decisive factor.

Two controversies remain. The first is the report’s definition of “paedophile” as someone who only has sex with children under 10. By this definition, less than one in twenty of abusing priests were paedophiles. But it’s clear from the figures that there were a lot of abusing priests who did not much care whether their victims were pre-pubescent or not. Nearly one in three of the multiple offenders had at least one victim who was 12 or younger as well as one who was older than 15.

The second is the response of the authorities. This has been historically feeble and sometimes much worse. But that’s a subject for another post.

We arrest, we try, we convict and we imprison and execute, people whom rape children and murder children. This is the supposed norm of what we do to those whom prey on children. Yet we allow one religious organization, to rape children, to murder children, to destroy children with impunity, without going after them, without arresting them, without prosecuting them, without imprisioning them or executing them in the most horrible and gruesome fashion we can think of, because when you rape or murder a child, this is exactly what you deserve….but hey…the

UNHOLY, ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH OF PEDOPHILE PIMP LEADERS, PEDOPHILE PRIESTS, PSYCHO ABUSIVE NUNS, AND FREAK PARISHIONERS WHOM LOVE THESE PEOPLE WHOM RAPE AND MURDER THEIR OWN CHILDREN ARE ABOVE THE FUCKING LAW.

We have overwhelming, concrete, irrefutable proof, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that if this evidence was heard by a jury, these scumbags would be convicted of their crimes….that the leaders of the Unholy Roman Catholic Church of Pedophiles…have moved rapist priests from parish to parish, state to state, country to country and are STILL DOING THIS TO THIS VERY DAY.

We have overwhelming, concrete, irrefutable proof, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that if this evidence was heard by a jury, these scumbags would be convicted of their crimes, that these leaders and others of the Roman Catholic Church have in fact murdered children. We have the bodies and the graves to prove it. Yet again, the Unholy Roman Catholic Church seems to be above the law and not one of these evil fucks have every been arrested nor prosecuted for their crimes.

IT IS TIME, FOR ALL THE GOOD PEOPLE, THE GOOD, DECENT, HONEST, MORAL PEOPLE OF THE WORLD TO GATHER TOGETHER AND JUST LIKE IN THE MOVIE NETWORK….SAY WE ARE MAD AS HELL AND WE ARE NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANY FUCKING LONGER!!!

WE NEED REAL PEOPLE TO FINALLY SAY…ENOUGH IS ENOUGH, WE WILL NOT ALLOW ONE MORE OF OUR CHILDREN TO BE RAPED, TO BE ABUSED, TO BE MURDERED BY THESE SCUM OF THE UNHOLY ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH.

WE AS A PEOPLE, NEED TO COME TOGETHER, TO PROTECT OUR CHILDREN FROM THESE EVIL, SOULESS, MONSTERS WHOM HIDE BEHIND RELIGIOUS ROBES….AND WE MUST DESTROY THEM AS A PEOPLE. WE MUST TAKE A STAND.

WE MUST STAND UP FOR OUR CHILDREN…WE MUST PLACE THE LIVES OF OUR CHILDREN FIRST, ABOVE THESE RELIGIOUS, SADISTIC, PSYCHOTIC FREAKS. WE MUST DESTROY COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY THESE PEOPLE OF SATAN, WHOM DESTROY LIVES.

ONLY UNTIL WE HAVE CARDINALS SUCH AS TIMOTHY DOLAN, BERNARD LAW, JUSTIN RIGALI, ROGER MAHONY, DOLAND WUERL, POPE EMERITUS BENEDICT AND ALL THE OTHERS, THEIR BODIES ROTTING WHILE SWINGING ON ROPES, HANGED IN FRONT OF THEIR VATICAN AND IN ST PETERS SQUARE FOR ALL TO SEE….THAT WE WILL NO LONGER PUT UP WITH THEIR POPES, CARDINALS, BISHOPS, ARCHBISHOPS, PRIESTS AND NUNS…RAPING OUR CHILDREN, MURDERING OUR CHILDREN AND THINKING THEY ARE ABOVE THE LAW BECAUSE THEY ARE THE LEADERS OF THIS PSYCHOTIC RELIGIOUS SECT.

WE EXECUTE CHILD RAPISTS AND MURDERERS ALL THE TIME, WE IMPRISON FOR LIFE EVIL, SOULESS, MORALESS, SCUMBAGS LIKE THIS ALL THE TIME.

WELL IT IS TIME TO START DOING THE SAME THING WITH THE PEDOPHILE PIMPS, PRIESTS, NUNS AND THE SCUM OF THE UNHOLY ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH.

I was told by a few Christians that instead of being pissed off at God and Jesus for all the wrongs done to me by those claiming to be followers of theirs, to count my blessings. The gist goes…If I count my blessings and then count the wrongs…the blessings will far rise above the wrongs.

So I took a few days to ponder this weighty question. Here is my answer:

First let me quantify something here. Even though I hate God and Jesus….it is NOT the kind of God and Jesus I read about and believe in somewhere deep down inside of me…it is the ones those whom Jesus said of: “For many shall call themselves by my name, but their hearts and minds are far from my teachings.”…that I do NOT accept nor will I EVER bow my knee down to. I do love the teachings of Jesus Christ.as I do all great teachers of peace, love, hope, charity..though I do have a problem with some of them, I believe it is those teachings in the bible that ring wrong with me…that were changed by Constantine and the council of hackers whom produced the first bible for use. So I do not really pay attention to them.

But what gets me about this story of this guy named Jesus…without all the extraneous bullshit…like the virgin birth, etc…was his core principle teaching and commandments (with my own revision because I truly believe that the original Hebrew translation…which was in the first King James but subsequently taken out stated: We made them in our image, male and female we made them like unto us. This would mean that there HAS to be a male and a female God…for a male God cannot make a female…it is not in his likeness, nor can a female God make a male…it is not in her likeness):

Love the Lord your God and Goddess with all of your heart and soul, and the second is like it…love your neighbor as you do yourself. On these two commands should hang all the laws.

Yet I am going to combine in judging my list here of the blessings and wrongs by both standards…mine and what these Christians tell me their God and Jesus are all about. I am going to use the bible too as a guide and what it says to make my list.

So here goes.

BLESSINGS:1. My two sons top this list. Joshua and Austin are my most important blessings. Even though they were taken away from me by their cruel mothers and an evil system designed to destroy fathers for the sake of a buck….the two biggest blessings in my life are Joshua Michael LaFerriere-Fifer and Austin LaFerriere. There is a LOT of things I would have changed…but the birth of my two beautiful sons….nope.

2. My loving and caring “family” and friends. I have a lot of brothers and sisters from other mothers. They are much more blood to me than my own blood relations. Most of them are also survivors of the evil that I too went through. Most of them were raped, beaten, abused, by either a religious person or a supposedly loving family member. We all have survived some of the worst horrors, some of the most brutal degradations done to a child or a teenager. Yet we have somehow survived without becoming the evil that has tried it’s hardest to destroy us. We are good, kind, loving souls with generous hearts. We love each other because we have experienced the same things in life. We survived through horrendous ordeals to come to the point we are today, and we offer each other things that NO ONE has EVER offered us in our lives before…true love, without exception or condition….not based on a perverted, evil concept of love…if you want to call what these people did to us love…..we offer each other support and acceptance….and we stand tall together…when one of us is falling into another Dark Night of the Soul…where we feel no hope.

My true friends and family are a blessing to me.

3. My love and my skills as a nature photographer are a blessing to me. The fact that I can wander around in a forest, taking pictures of all the beauty I see around me, and then able to share it…well that is a blessing to me. The reality to me, that I can go anywhere in a forest and not feel fear of it? That I have admired the stars far too long to be afraid of the dark? To be able to say that I am NOT an evil person because I have actually had wildlife come right up to me and let me pet them? Or take pics of them? Yeah if I were evil….then they would NOT come near me. One thing I have learned from tramping in the woods and being around peoples pets…animals can tell when someone is evil…VERY RARELY have I EVER had an animal react strangely around me…or in fear of me…and that was more dogs whom were abused and are afraid of EVERYONE.

But my photography also blesses me because it brings me incredible peace and joy. In the forest I have no real fear…except for humans…so through my photography and being outdoors…it is a blessing.

4. Music. Next to my photography, music to me is a blessing.

5. That I am even alive is a blessing. I think about all the times I should be dead. From almost drowning because of my stupidity at Bow Lake when I was 16, to that murdering rapist whom picked me up and drugged me and I woke up to raping me in the back of his RV, to my dedicated drug overdoses, especially when I dissolved all those pills in that glass of vodka, drank it….if it were not for that girl showing up that night…and knowing what to do….I would be dead. Or the other suicide attempts where I should be dead? The fact that I am still even alive…is sort of a blessing one would say. They would say I am here for a reason…if I tried to kill myself like this or survived these things….but hey…..look into the curse section too lol.

Well that is about all I can really think of for blessings. I mean hey…I am really trying…you know…even though I do go starving at least I do eat….or even though I am homeless…I have a friend whom is letting me crash on her couch til next week…but I cannot stay any longer as it would NOT be fair to her….it is my responsibility and if I cannot afford to live in my own place…then I gotta go live in my tent until I do. The biggest problem is security deposits…and anyone whom knows me…thinks that Catholic Charities is going to help me? After what I say about their Pedophile Pimps? Not in this lifetime.

Now honestly lets look at the negatives:

CURSES:

1. Even though my sons are the greatest blessings in my life….their mothers have been the greatest curses of my life. To have done to me what was done to me at the hands of their mothers…should be illegal. To have done to me what was done to me by Holly Hepp of the CPS in Ohio…she should be in prison for the rest of her life so she can never harm another father or their children ever again. Yet I am made out to be the one whom is wrong, the one to blame, the evil one, the one whom would rape his own sons or abuse them as Holly Hepp said to me.

No one can seem to understand the Catch-22 I am in here with my soul over this..as well as my life. Sure with Josh I got to be with him maybe a total of two months after his birth, but with Austin, hell I haven’t even been able to tell him I love him. Not even kiss him. Nothing. So here it is…I think about them and it destroys me. So I try to put them out of my mind to retain my sanity and it is even more of a curse on me…because what kind of father am I to not want to think about my sons? I love looking at their pictures, they bring me joy, but they also bring me incredible pain, because of all the loss…and then I hide the pic for a while so I do not have to look at them and then again condemn myself for it because…what kind of loving, caring father does this?

2. I guess I am supposed to consider being raped by a priest, to have my soul destroyed and taken from me and all the living hell I went through and been through because of it…and because of now standing up about it and demanding the Pedophile Pimps…hell anyone whom participated in these evils against us…be put where they belong…in prison….is a BLESSING? OK about the ONLY blessing I can consider coming from this is the fact I made some beautiful friends and family from it. Otherwise ANYONE whom got raped by a priest…or by any pastor, minister or supposed Holy Person…..would consider it a curse and evil and a HUGE NEGATIVE.

3. How about that scumbag whom picked me up hitch-hiking and drugged and raped me? Nope…I sure would NOT consider that a blessing…even in disguise!! Why did you NOT just kill me that day and get it done and over with?

4. The last scumbag, whom picked me up hitch-hiking….showed me those gay books, would NOT take no for an answer…drove down the dirt road before the Gloucester bridge and in MY MIND I was about to be raped again when he pulled out his knife. Well I guess being arrested when I flagged down that cop car and told him what happened, and the scumbag jerk being in the back seat of that car, and then pressing charges against me for assault with a deadly weapon, attempted armed robbery etc…well that is supposed to be a blessing too?

5. My blood family turning their backs on me. Ok let me get this straight. Was I a problem kid? Freaking right I was. Did I steal cigs from my parents to smoke? Yuppers. Did I steal a check from my dad, cash it, bought a carton of cigs? Yuppers. I believe those were really my worse crimes. Yeah I skipped school….but hey….ya know? Did I steal porn mags from the local book store and sell them to my friends? Guilty! I wonder how many of us actually did this as kids? I know at least my older brother used to steal cigs and drink and smoke dope…but hey that was him…..the freaking hypocrite…and oh yeah…he did have a chance to get his girlfriend knocked up at such a young age….but hey I don’t have all the facts to judge him…but even though he does not have all the facts…he can judge me.

Yet in my older brothers eyes….that made me Hitler…hell that made me worse than Hitler.

When my life fell apart after the priest rape, or anything else…it did not matter to any of them….I was the black sheep of the family…well the ONLY one whom it mattered to was my father and mother…..and I damn well know my father…loved me and so did my mother. But to my brothers and sister…I am still the evil black sheep of the family, without one redeeming quality, bound for hell….so I got that going for me.

I ALWAYS thought that family…blood family…though they could get pissed off at the wrongs you did….unless you truly were a rapist, a murderer, etc….but come on…for this shit????? They were supposed to at least never disown you for this kind of crap. So yeah…I would consider the loss of my family…though I did wrong…this was NOT deserving….and I consider it a major negative. Yeah my older self righteous brother thinks I am such a Hitler that I should be banned from any family reunions that he may be at….and have me arrested if I decide to come. Gotta love older brothers like that. Should I BELIEVE what my mother used to say about him to me…how he was such a defender and protector of me when I was sick, had all those operations and was blind for a while because I had to wear eye patches? Nah.

6. Donohue and the whole Catholic Church. THEY ARE A CURSE TO ME. Need I say more? Cardinals like Timothy Dolan, George Pell, Donald Wuerl, Justin Rigali, Bernard Law, Roger Mahony and the whole lot of them…they are a curse not only to me…but to all mankind. They preferred to protect their pedophile priests over us whom were being raped and abused by them….and became Pedophile Pimps. They then became LYING PEDOPHILE PIMPS. when they all signed those Promise to Protect Pledge to Heal charters, the Dallas Charter and all the Charters with the United Nations on children’s rights. They became LYING PEDOPHILE PIMPS when they PROMISED to help us victims…then attacked us at every chance they could, saying they wanted to beat us with baseball bats, or we were to blame for our own rapes, or we were the seducers of these disgusting scumbag rapists. Or we are liars, gold diggers out looking for a payday. Or how we are Anti-Catholic bigot scum for daring to challenge them. Yeah this whole thing is a curse to me, a double edged sword.

For if I walk away…I am no better, hell I am even worse than they are. See I have a soul, I have a conscious…something people like Dolan, Donohue, Law and the rest do not have…I feel real pain when a victim comes to me with their story, or I read their stories. I feel real pain when I see what the scumbag Pedophile Pimps and their buddies are doing to us…when all we want is justice and healing…all they give us is more pain and suffering. Well they are a curse…and they deserve to be cursed.

I could no sooner walk away from this, or helping others whom were harmed by these scumbags as I could live without breathing. But it is a curse, a double curse…because this is also destroying what is left of my soul…..for my soul cannot take this evil much longer.

7. Christianists. Always telling me what to do…be like them!!! What? A bigoted, self righteous, hate filled scumbag? Well thanks but no thanks…you people have instilled enough hate in my heart for you that you make it almost impossible to do what your own Jesus tells you to do….love thy neighbor as thyself….for if I do like these Christianists do…I could rape a child, cover it up and say….oh I did not know it was a crime…and even if it is…..you should just forgive and turn the other cheek.

I also love their hatred towards women, gays, etc….They demonstrate to me the truth when Jesus said…Many shall call themselves by my name but their hearts and minds are far from my teachings.

I seem to attract these psycho, freak Christianists in my life in droves…why am I such a magnet for these psychos? Oh…it is because I tell the truth about them and it pisses them off.

8. MY LIFE OF ABJECT POVERTY. Oh Jesus and God….I am supposed to count as a blessing the abject poverty I have lived through in my life eh? Now wait a minute….I thought you guys were supposed to bless good people and curse bad people. That you all slammed these religious holy people living off the fat of the land? That you were supposed to punish the bad and reward the good. Oh I haven’t been being good just for the reward….like most of those Christianists attempt to portray they do…but fail miserably….I’ve done good because it is the right thing to do. Besides…that Spirit that is inside of me? Each and every time I claim I must be evil because of all the evil things that happen to me……it says NO I AM GOOD AND NOT EVIL. Yet again…in the bible, it says…As you sow…so shall you reap.

So hey…not to brag….but I have sowed a lot of good things…some incredible things….so how come????

I tried and tried to sell my photography…I do not want a hand out…I want a hand up. Yet nada for 7 years. I bust my ass to work and I do not deserve any pay for it? While your religious leaders basically sit on their asses, raping children, covering up the rapes of children, murdering children and burying them in septic systems…..and do all kinds of other evils…then go to their church on Sunday and you forgive them for all their evil…but you still shit on us? Oh and how rich do they have to be? Before some of that trickles down to us? They do not earn their pay…but you sure give it to them in stacks of $100s!!!

I am supposed to bow down and worship this type of God and his Son? REALLY? I am supposed to be grateful? I am supposed to count abject poverty where at the end of the month…like the last two weeks…I am lucky to eat one meal a day? While those fat pigs whom raped us and covered up the rapes of us look like they have not missed a meal in decades? Oh and then if I bitch about it…not only does that mean I am an ungrateful little prick….I get shoved deeper into poverty to see what it is like to have even less? I am supposed to thank you and love you for this? When I see you barely lift a finger to help me? But you sure the HELL lift your big fat hands to make those whom did these evils to us…not want for ANYTHING?

Yeah abject poverty…now I consider that a real BLESSING….not!!!

7. That I am even alive. I have suffered so damn much. Jesus and God must think I am Superman times two. They really must. Look at all the loss I have suffered…if I look at it…my life is the life of Job in a way. Trouble is….there is a saying in the bible that goes…Suffer the children that they may come unto me. REALLY?

Unrelenting suffering is a way to make someone come to you? Raping them is a way to make them come unto you? Forcing them to live in abject poverty is the way to make someone come to you? Taking away their children and giving them to their evil mothers…that too is how you make someone come to you?

Listen bozos…I’ve tried….oh how I’ve tried…to come to you. I have begged you, I have screamed at you, I have threatened you, I have cried to you, I have pleaded with you…to help me…to show me God and Jesus Christ that YOU are worthy…of my love and faith…but you have NOT SHOWN ME ANY OF THIS!!!! You keep saying to have faith? Faith in what? That one day you are going to find that I have suffered enough? That I have lived in abject poverty, loss and suffering enough? When will that be please? I sure would LOVE to pencil it in on my calender. That I have been denied justice for the crimes done to me? Your sure did punish the living shit out of me when I broke into that hotel room and stole the wallet from the car. You sure punished the living shit out of me with a five year prison term over that utter and complete bullshit over my son Josh. You are even punishing the shit outta me for standing up to Pig Face Donohue.

So which is it Bozos? Do you truly hate evil like you say? God…you say you cannot stand the sight of evil. Jesus…you say it would be better for you to tie a huge millstone around your neck and throw yourself into the deepest of lakes than to harm a single hair on the head of a child.

Seems though….you do the exact opposite. You punish the good and you reward the evil.

Again…I am supposed to love you, follow you, bend my knee to you? Be like those whom proclaim to follow you and then do all manners of evil against humanity…and then claim they are doing it in your names and then you do not punish them….like you promised to do…but you sure the FUCK punish us when we stand up and fight it…like you supposedly tell us to do. Do you not tell us to fight this evil? Oh wait…I guess there is a caviat to this rule eh?

Those whom do fight this evil will be destroyed…is that not what you said? We whom fight this evil will be murdered, thrown into prison, slaughtered and butchered????

Wow… now you are making me wonder….why should I not join the bad guys if this is what you are going to do and allow to be done to the good guys. I thought God and Jesus were supposed to defend the righteous, to fight on our side…but hey…look honestly and realistically at it…if they are real…man are you guys dropping the ball.

So I would say essentially though my life is a blessing…it is more of a curse. I have been made to suffer some of the most evil things that can be done to another…and still to this day…I am still suffering.

Put it bluntly there God and Jesus…do I want to be rich? Yeah…I do not want to ever worry about putting a roof over my head, or food in my stomach…or wait until my clothes totally disintegrate before I can spend 5 bucks on a used pair of pants. I want to give my sons some beautiful things. I want to help many others whom have been harmed by your followers. I want to set up a foundation that truly and honestly helps the religious abuse survivor with their needs….but I guess this is wrong to ask for in your eyes isn’t it?

Because God and Jesus….you would rather make those religious freaks all fat and sassy and rich….than the children you supposedly love…but I guess we are the ones whom are supposed to suffer for truly wanting to follow you. While the hypocrite Pharisee and Sadducee get all the help they need from you. Oh wait a minute…I forgot….

I am not supposed to blame you…I am not supposed to blame YOU God or YOU Jesus for turning your backs on us….I am supposed to blame Satan and his followers….I guess this then all goes to prove…that when it comes time to fighting Satan and his followers….you arm your combatants with nothing and expect them to do everything for you…but give them NOT one drop of help…because I guess that would be messing with our free will again…wouldn’t it? Our free will to be raped, destroyed and live in abject poverty……because you deem that more fit for us…than you do for the scum whom did this to us…in YOUR names.

SO IN CLOSING…I COULD POST MORE NEGATIVES…BUT HEY THIS IS MORE THAN ENOUGH…TO SAY TO THOSE CHRISTIANS WHOM SAY IF I COUNT MY BLESSINGS AND MY CURSES I WOULD FIND THAT MY LIFE IS MUCH MORE BLESSED THAN CURSED….YOU’RE WRONG.

THEN AGAIN…MAYBE YOU CHRISTIANISTS WHOM SAY THIS TO ME…CAN PROVIDE ME WITH WHAT I NEED….CAUSE YOUR GOD YOU WANT ME TO FOLLOW SURE ISN’T. AGAIN…..I DO NOT WANT A HAND OUT…I WANT A HAND UP.

We arrest, we try, we convict and we imprison and execute, people whom rape children and murder children. This is the supposed norm of what we do to those whom prey on children. Yet we allow one religious organization, to rape children, to murder children, to destroy children with impunity, without going after them, without arresting them, without prosecuting them, without imprisoning them or executing them in the most horrible and gruesome fashion we can think of, because when you rape or murder a child, this is exactly what you deserve….but hey…the

UNHOLY, ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH OF PEDOPHILE PIMP LEADERS, PEDOPHILE PRIESTS, PSYCHO ABUSIVE NUNS, AND FREAK PARISHIONERS WHOM LOVE THESE PEOPLE WHOM RAPE AND MURDER THEIR OWN CHILDREN ARE ABOVE THE FUCKING LAW.

We have overwhelming, concrete, irrefutable proof, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that if this evidence was heard by a jury, these scumbags would be convicted of their crimes….that the leaders of the Unholy Roman Catholic Church of Pedophiles…have moved rapist priests from parish to parish, state to state, country to country and are STILL DOING THIS TO THIS VERY DAY.

We have overwhelming, concrete, irrefutable proof, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that if this evidence was heard by a jury, these scumbags would be convicted of their crimes, that these leaders and others of the Roman Catholic Church have in fact murdered children. We have the bodies and the graves to prove it. Yet again, the Unholy Roman Catholic Church seems to be above the law and not one of these evil leaders have every been arrested nor prosecuted for their crimes.

IT IS TIME, FOR ALL THE GOOD PEOPLE, THE GOOD, DECENT, HONEST, MORAL PEOPLE OF THE WORLD TO GATHER TOGETHER AND JUST LIKE IN THE MOVIE NETWORK….SAY WE ARE MAD AS HELL AND WE ARE NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANY LONGER!!!

WE NEED REAL PEOPLE TO FINALLY SAY…ENOUGH IS ENOUGH, WE WILL NOT ALLOW ONE MORE OF OUR CHILDREN TO BE RAPED, TO BE ABUSED, TO BE MURDERED BY THESE SCUM OF THE UNHOLY ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH.

WE AS A PEOPLE, NEED TO COME TOGETHER, TO PROTECT OUR CHILDREN FROM THESE EVIL, SOULESS, MONSTERS WHOM HIDE BEHIND RELIGIOUS ROBES….AND WE MUST DESTROY THEM AS A PEOPLE. WE MUST TAKE A STAND.

WE MUST STAND UP FOR OUR CHILDREN…WE MUST PLACE THE LIVES OF OUR CHILDREN FIRST, ABOVE THESE RELIGIOUS, SADISTIC, PSYCHOTIC FREAKS. WE MUST DESTROY COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY THESE PEOPLE OF SATAN, WHOM DESTROY LIVES.

ONLY UNTIL WE HAVE CARDINALS SUCH AS TIMOTHY DOLAN, BERNARD LAW, JUSTIN RIGALI, ROGER MAHONY, DOLAND WUERL, POPE EMERITUS BENEDICT AND ALL THE OTHERS, THEIR BODIES ROTTING WHILE SWINGING ON ROPES, HANGED IN FRONT OF THEIR VATICAN AND IN ST PETERS SQUARE FOR ALL TO SEE….THAT WE WILL NO LONGER PUT UP WITH THEIR POPES, CARDINALS, BISHOPS, ARCHBISHOPS, PRIESTS AND NUNS…RAPING OUR CHILDREN, MURDERING OUR CHILDREN AND THINKING THEY ARE ABOVE THE LAW BECAUSE THEY ARE THE LEADERS OF THIS PSYCHOTIC RELIGIOUS SECT.

WE EXECUTE CHILD RAPISTS AND MURDERERS ALL THE TIME, WE IMPRISON FOR LIFE EVIL, SOULESS, MORALESS, SCUMBAGS LIKE THIS ALL THE TIME.

WELL IT IS TIME TO START DOING THE SAME THING WITH THE PEDOPHILE PIMPS, PRIESTS, NUNS AND THE SCUM OF THE UNHOLY ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH.

If you were to find out that the leadership of a group or organization you belonged to had appeared before commissions and grand juries and openly admitted to covering up the abuses of children, from rape to severe beatings, to even the death of a child, and that this involved tens of thousands of members own children, and that the cover ups are wide spread throughout the organization or group, you would think that the membership of the group would rise up in arms and make sure that the leadership is arrested and prosecuted to the fullest extent the law allows. That they would stand up and defend and protect their children over the leadership of their group or organization. Yet there is one such organization…though there are others….that its leadership is totally immune from liability for crimes such as these by it’s membership. This organization is known as the Roman Catholic Church.

While they have come far with this problem of child abuse, the Vatican announced that for 2011-2012 almost 400 priests had to be let go because of credible accusations of child abuse, including rape, there is still much to be done. While it is commendable that they caught and fired these priests, what about those whom participated in the cover ups of these crimes? Why are they not called to account for their crimes of the members own children? Why are the leadership of the church put above the law and those whom they have harmed? Why are they defended and even praised or made a saint?

There have been at least a half a dozen commission reports, like the Ryan Report, that detail the systematic sexual, physical, mental, emotional and spiritual abuse of children and teens, children of the Roman Catholic Church; and the cover ups of these abuses by the leaders and even their highest leaders, ones whom are supposed to be the Vicars of Jesus while on this earth and in their position. Yet even to this day, not one credibly accused leader has ever been arrested or prosecuted for their crimes save one, Bishop Robert Finn and that case is being retried. Matter of fact, one of these, John Paul II was given sainthood. There is overwhelming evidence he participated in the cover up of and through acts of omission, turned a blind eye to, the pederast Rev. Marcial Maciel, founder of the Legion of Christ. Yet he is given sainthood? This is an insult to all those whom are survivors of these evil crimes against us.

There are some incredible priests and leaders of the Roman Catholic Church. I have met some of them. From Fr Tom Doyle, ret., whom has fought tirelessly for the victims of priest abuse, at the cost of his being a priest, to even our own local priest Fr Kyle Stanton whom has helped me immensely, to groups like Catholic Whistleblowers, and others, they have sort of restored my faith that this problem of priests and nuns abusing children and teens will stop. Yet to truly set things right the following must be done.

1. All credibly accused leaders, from Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, to Cardinals like Timothy Dolan, Donald Wuerl, Roger Mahony, Bernard Law, George Pell, and many others, against whom there is overwhelming evidence, through commission reports, grand jury testimonies and the churches own documents, must be fired. They must be arrested and prosecuted. We do this to other criminals, we demand this of any rapist or those whom cover up the rapes and abuses of children. They may be leaders of the Roman Catholic Church, but these men are criminals and deserve to be arrested and prosecuted and the victims deserve their day in court and justice for the crimes committed against them because of these leaders actions.

2. Abide by the Pledge to Protect, Promise to Heal charter all of the diocese of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States signed. All attacks against the victims must stop. We are not responsible for our rapes, we did not enjoy being raped. We are not homosexuals because we were raped by a male priest. We are not liars, gold diggers who are out looking for a payday from the Roman Catholic Church.

We are your sons, we are your daughters, who want justice, whom want those who perpetrated these crimes against us punished, whom went through one of the most horrifying and terrifying experiences a human being can go through. We trusted these priests and nuns and they destroyed that trust with their evil crimes against us. We were raped, we were beaten, we had our souls, our hearts stolen from us, we had our bodies destroyed and abused. We did not deserve this, we were not willing participants and we refuse to remain silent while those whom are responsible for these crimes against us go free while we still remain trapped inside the prisons they created for us.

3. No matter what….put your children before your leaders. Protect and stand up and defend your children….not the leaders whom committed these evils against us. Your children should come first. Stand up for the victims of these crimes, whom are your own children. You may know one. Again, we are your sons, your daughters, your nieces and nephews, your God children, whom you vowed and promised to protect and defend.

I started going back to church. I even started photographing St Annes, an incredibly beautiful place of worship. I had no choice though, I had to stop because I felt like such a hypocrite. Far too many of us whom were victims still see those responsible for these evils against us in their positions as if nothing in the world is wrong. We victims are still being attacked, by people like Bill Donohue, President of the Catholic League. We are still being attacked by parishioners whom have called me a liar to my face and how dare I spread lies and rumors and false accusations and gossip against the leaders. Well, sadly, I am not spreading lies, rumors and false accusations, these statements I have made can all be proven beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law if it were allowed.

Yet while these leaders whom perpetrated these crimes against us are still in power, I cannot in good conscious go into the church. I cannot be part of a church where the leadership covered up the crimes of child abuse, child rape and put the church before the children and are still in power, for that makes me a hypocrite in my eyes.

I would love to go on a regular basis to St Anne, to be among the other worshipers, some of whom I made acquaintance and even friends with, especially Fr Kyle, but I cannot, for while the wolves are still in control….someone must stand outside the door for the defense and protection of the children and the victims.

Sin is one thing…sin can be forgiven when there is true repentance from the sin. There has been no true repentance among the leadership whom covered up these crimes. There have been staged acts of contrition, but no true repentance. For if they are to truly repent they must also submit to prosecution for the crimes they committed. They must not hide behind their robes of religion. If they seek to make laws for man like they do, they also must submit to the laws of man and be arrested and prosecuted for their crimes. No one, not even religious leaders, should be allowed to get away with crimes against children. They should not be above the law!

When it comes time to the crimes of the rapes and abuses of children and teens and the cover up of these crimes by the leadership…only justice in a court of law, where the victims may have their day in court to see those responsible for the crimes against them be tried and if found guilty sentenced to prison…that is true justice. The Roman Catholic Church promised this to victims and to prosecuting attorneys…but have failed to deliver on this promise. Instead they still fight the victims and hide behind the statue of limitations to deny justice to the victims. Ask yourself is this true justice? If you were raped would you say this is true justice?

In closing whom do you think Jesus Christ will stand up for in the end?

Those whom perpetrated these crimes against children and teens…or the children and teen victims?

Here is a clue: “For it would be better for you to tie a huge boulder around your neck and throw yourself into the deepest of lakes than to harm a single hair on the head of a child.”

Well the leadership of the Roman Catholic Church did a lot more than harm a hair on the head of a child. Whom are you going to stand besides? The ones Jesus Christ would stand up for? Or the ones He would toss into the pit of hell for their evils against children?

The leadership of the Roman Catholic church is engaged in a tense standoff with the United Nations after a damning report on the Holy See’s handling of the clerical sex abuse scandal was branded out of date, unfair and ideological by a top Vatican official.

After the appearance last month of a Holy See delegation before the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, the expert panel published a series of highly critical observations accusing the church of failing to acknowledge the scale of the problem and implementing policies that led to “the continuation of the abuse and the impunity of the perpetrators”.

The committee said it was particularly concerned that, when dealing with allegations of children being abused by priests, “the Holy See has consistently placed the preservation of the reputation of the church and the protection of the perpetrators above children’s best interests”.

The panel also found fault with some central church teachings and their impact on children’s health, urging the Vatican to reconsider its stance on abortion and contraception, and encouraging it to tone down criticism of homosexuality in an attempt to reduce “social stigmatisation” and violence against gay youths and children raised by gay couples.

In a swift and terse response, the Vatican released a statement saying it would submit the findings “to a thorough study and examination” but did not appreciate being asked to change its position on issues it considered immutable.

“The Holy See does … regret to see in some points of the concluding observations an attempt to interfere with Catholic church teaching on the dignity of [the] human person and in the exercise of religious freedom,” it said.

Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Holy See’s permanent observer at the UN in Geneva, went further, saying he had been surprised by the findings, which he considered “not up to date” and a distorted depiction that ignored recent progress.

Tomasi, who was part of last month’s delegation, said the report seemed “almost to have been prepared before” that meeting, and ignored the “precise responses on various points” that he and other officials had given. Asked by Vatican Radio why he thought the findings had been so harsh, he said he suspected pro-gay rights NGOs had influenced the committee and “reinforced an ideological line” in the UN.

Advocates for the survivors of clerical sex abuse welcomed the committee’s findings. “This day has been a long time coming, but the international community is finally holding the Vatican accountable for its role in enabling and perpetuating sexual violence in the church,” said Katherine Gallagher, a senior staff attorney at the US-based Centre for Constitutional Rights.

“The whole world will be watching to ensure that the Vatican takes the concrete steps required by the UN to protect children and end these crimes.”

Pope Francis has referred to clerical child sex abuse as “the shame of the church”, yet has not often spoken out about it, preferring to focus on other issues such as poverty and the evils of the global financial system. In December he announced the establishment of a commission of experts to look at how the church could better protect children from potential abusers.

When they appeared in Geneva last month, Tomasi and Charles Scicluna, a former sex crimes prosecutor at the Vatican and auxiliary bishop of Malta, said guidelines already put in place by the Holy See and Catholic churches around the world had, when properly applied, presented a way of eliminating the scourge of abuse. “The Holy See gets it,” Scicluna declared.

But, according to the UN committee, that is yet to be proved. “The committee is gravely concerned that the Holy See has not acknowledged the extent of the crimes committed, has not taken the necessary measures to address cases of child sexual abuse and to protect children, and has adopted policies and practices which have led to the continuation of the abuse by and the impunity of the perpetrators,” it wrote in its first concluding observations on the Holy See – a signatory to the UN convention on the rights of the child – since 1995.

Dismissing a key plank of the Holy See’s argument – that the church is not comparable to a global business and the Vatican cannot be expected to keep in check all clergy in all parts of the world – the committee said that by ratifying the convention it had committed itself to implementing it “not only on the territory of the Vatican City state but also as the supreme power of the Catholic church through individuals and institutions placed under its authority”.

Attacking what it described as a “code of silence” that had restricted the reporting of suspected crimes, the committee criticised the practice of moving priests found to have abused children from parish to parish or to other countries “in an attempt to cover up such crimes”.

The committee noted: “The practice of offenders’ mobility, which has allowed many priests to remain in contact with children and to continue to abuse them, still places children in many countries at high risk of sexual abuse, as dozens of child sexual offenders are reported to be still in contact with children.”

Last month Scicluna told the panel that this was “a grave concern”, but said dioceses and parishes were now obliged to pass on information concerning a priest wanting to move on. He also said: “It is not a policy of the Holy See to encourage cover-ups.”

The UN panel also criticised the Holy See for refusing to hand over data concerning all cases of abuse brought to its attention during the period in question, and their outcomes. It said confidential disciplinary proceedings had “allowed the vast majority of abusers and almost all those who concealed child sexual abuse to escape judicial proceedings in states where abuses were committed”.

The findings were not limited to clerical abuse, exploring other areas – from the classification of “illegitimate” children to the use of so-called baby boxes – where it said the Catholic church could improve its protection of children’s rights.

It was particularly critical of the Vatican’s handling of Ireland’s Magdalene Laundries scandal, in which thousands of women and girls were abused and enslaved, saying a full Vatican investigation should be launched and the abusers prosecuted. It demanded full compensation be paid to the victims and their families who were caught up in the system in Ireland.

Last year the Irish state finally said sorry to 10,000 women and girls incarcerated in Catholic church-run laundries, where they were treated as virtual slaves. The taoiseach, Enda Kenny, said what happened to the Magdalene women had “cast a long shadow over Irish life, over our sense of who we are”, and he “deeply regretted and apologised” for the hurt and trauma inflicted.

Clerical sex abuse: the UN’s recommendations

• All known and suspected child abusers must be immediately removed from their positions and the relevant civil law enforcement authorities notified. This reporting to civil authorities must be mandatory; clear rules and procedures should be set up to facilitate it; and all church employees must be taught that these obligations prevail over church law.

• Pope Francis’s commission should investigate independently all cases of abuse and “the conduct of the Catholic hierarchy in dealing with them”. It should consider appointing representatives of civil society and victims groups.

• Archives of past cases dealt with by the Holy See must be opened to allow for both the abusers and those who may have sought to conceal their crimes and “knowingly placed offenders in contact with children” to be held accountable.

The committee’s findings are non-binding. The report notes that most of the recommendations made by the panel in 1995 have “not been fully addressed”.